CAPEC-625

Mobile Device Fault Injection
Draft
2015-11-09
00h00 +00:00
2023-01-24
00h00 +00:00
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Descriptions CAPEC

Fault injection attacks against mobile devices use disruptive signals or events (e.g. electromagnetic pulses, laser pulses, clock glitches, etc.) to cause faulty behavior. When performed in a controlled manner on devices performing cryptographic operations, this faulty behavior can be exploited to derive secret key information. Although this attack usually requires physical control of the mobile device, it is non-destructive, and the device can be used after the attack without any indication that secret keys were compromised.

Informations CAPEC

Skills Required

Adversaries require non-trivial technical skills to create and implement fault injection attacks on mobile devices. Although this style of attack has become easier (commercial equipment and training classes are available to perform these attacks), they usual require significant setup and experimentation time during which physical access to the device is required. This prerequisite makes the attack challenging to perform (assuming that physical security countermeasures and monitoring are in place).

Mitigations

Strong physical security of all devices that contain secret key information. (even when devices are not in use)
Frequent changes to secret keys and certificates.

Related Weaknesses

CWE-ID Weakness Name

CWE-1247

 Improper Protection Against Voltage and Clock Glitches
The device does not contain or contains incorrectly implemented circuitry or sensors to detect and mitigate voltage and clock glitches and protect sensitive information or software contained on the device.

CWE-1248

 Semiconductor Defects in Hardware Logic with Security-Sensitive Implications
The security-sensitive hardware module contains semiconductor defects.

CWE-1256

 Improper Restriction of Software Interfaces to Hardware Features
The product provides software-controllable device functionality for capabilities such as power and clock management, but it does not properly limit functionality that can lead to modification of hardware memory or register bits, or the ability to observe physical side channels.

CWE-1319

 Improper Protection against Electromagnetic Fault Injection (EM-FI)
The device is susceptible to electromagnetic fault injection attacks, causing device internal information to be compromised or security mechanisms to be bypassed.

CWE-1332

 Improper Handling of Faults that Lead to Instruction Skips
The device is missing or incorrectly implements circuitry or sensors that detect and mitigate the skipping of security-critical CPU instructions when they occur.

CWE-1334

 Unauthorized Error Injection Can Degrade Hardware Redundancy
An unauthorized agent can inject errors into a redundant block to deprive the system of redundancy or put the system in a degraded operating mode.

CWE-1338

 Improper Protections Against Hardware Overheating
A hardware device is missing or has inadequate protection features to prevent overheating.

CWE-1351

 Improper Handling of Hardware Behavior in Exceptionally Cold Environments
A hardware device, or the firmware running on it, is missing or has incorrect protection features to maintain goals of security primitives when the device is cooled below standard operating temperatures.

Submission

Name Organization Date Date release
CAPEC Content Team The MITRE Corporation 2015-11-09 +00:00

Modifications

Name Organization Date Comment
CAPEC Content Team The MITRE Corporation 2018-07-31 +00:00 Updated Attack_Motivation-Consequences
CAPEC Content Team The MITRE Corporation 2019-09-30 +00:00 Updated @Abstraction
CAPEC Content Team The MITRE Corporation 2023-01-24 +00:00 Updated Related_Weaknesses